The Complete Quin and Satterthwaite

While he was resolving these things in his mind, the other spoke, realizing somewhat belatedly that his single ejaculation so far might be open to criticism.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said with some embarrassment. ‘As a matter of fact, I was – well, startled. I didn’t expect anyone to be here.’

He smiled disarmingly. He had a charming smile – friendly – appealing.

‘It is rather a lonely spot,’ agreed Mr Satterthwaite, as he moved politely a little further up the bench. The other accepted the mute invitation and sat down.

‘I don’t know about lonely,’ he said. ‘There always seems to be someone here.’

There was a tinge of latent resentment in his voice. Mr Satterthwaite wondered why. He read the other as a friendly soul. Why this insistence on solitude? A rendezvous, perhaps? No – not that. He looked again with carefully veiled scrutiny at his companion. Where had he seen that particular expression before quite lately? That look of dumb bewildered resentment.

‘You’ve been up here before then?’ said Mr Satterthwaite, more for the sake of saying something than for anything else.

‘I was up here last night – after dinner.’

‘Really? I thought the gates were always locked.’

There was a moment’s pause and then, almost sullenly, the young man said:

‘I climbed over the wall.’

Mr Satterthwaite looked at him with real attention now. He had a sleuthlike habit of mind and he was aware that his companion had only arrived on the preceding afternoon. He had had little time to discover the beauty of the villa by daylight and he had so far spoken to nobody. Yet after dark he had made straight for La Paz. Why? Almost involuntarily Mr Satterthwaite turned his head to look at the green-shuttered villa, but it was as ever serenely lifeless, close shuttered. No, the solution of the mystery was not there.

‘And you actually found someone here then?’

The other nodded.

‘Yes. Must have been from the other Hotel. He had on fancy dress.’

‘Fancy dress?’

‘Yes. A kind of Harlequin rig.’

‘What?’

The query fairly burst from Mr Satterthwaite’s lips. His companion turned to stare at him in surprise.

‘They often do have fancy dress shows at the Hotels, I suppose?’

‘Oh! quite,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘Quite, quite, quite.’

He paused breathlessly, then added:

‘You must excuse my excitement. Do you happen to know anything about catalysis?’

The young man stared at him.

‘Never heard of it. What is it?’

Mr Satterthwaite quoted gravely: ‘A chemical reaction depending for its success on the presence of a certain substance which itself remains unchanged.’

‘Oh,’ said the young man uncertainly.

‘I have a certain friend – his name is Mr Quin, and he can best be described in the terms of catalysis. His presence is a sign that things are going to happen, because when he is there strange revelations come to light, discoveries are made. And yet – he himself takes no part in the proceedings. I have a feeling that it was my friend you met here last night.’

‘He’s a very sudden sort of chap then. He gave me quite a shock. One minute he wasn’t there and the next minute he was! Almost as though he came up out of the sea.’

Mr Satterthwaite looked along the little plateau and down the sheer drop below.

‘That’s nonsense, of course,’ said the other. ‘But it’s the feeling he gave me. Of course, really, there isn’t the foothold for a fly.’ He looked over the edge. ‘A straight clear drop. If you went over – well, that would be the end right enough.’

‘An ideal spot for a murder, in fact,’ said Mr Satterthwaite pleasantly. The other stared at him, almost as though for the moment he did not follow. Then he said vaguely: ‘Oh! yes – of course …’

He sat there, making little dabs at the ground with his stick and frowning. Suddenly Mr Satterthwaite got the resemblance he had been seeking. That dumb bewildered questioning. So had the dog looked who was run over. His eyes and this young man’s eyes asked the same pathetic question with the same reproach. ‘Oh! world that I have trusted – what have you done to me?’

He saw other points of resemblance between the two, the same pleasure-loving easy-going existence, the same joyous abandon to the delights of life, the same absence of intellectual questioning. Enough for both to live in the moment – the world was a good place, a place of carnal delights – sun, sea, sky – a discreet garbage heap. And then – what? A car had hit the dog. What had hit the man?

The subject of these cogitations broke in at this point, speaking, however, more to himself than to Mr Satterthwaite.

‘One wonders,’ he said, ‘what it’s All For?’

Familiar words – words that usually brought a smile to Mr Satterthwaite’s lips, with their unconscious betrayal of the innate egoism of humanity which insists on regarding every manifestation of life as directly designed for its delight or its torment. He did not answer and presently the stranger said with a slight, rather apologetic laugh:

‘I’ve heard it said that every man should build a house, plant a tree and have a son.’ He paused and then added: ‘I believe I planted an acorn once …’

Mr Satterthwaite stirred slightly. His curiosity was aroused – that ever-present interest in the affairs of other people of which the Duchess had accused him was roused. It was not difficult. Mr Satterthwaite had a very feminine side to his nature, he was as good a listener as any woman, and he knew the right moment to put in a prompting word. Presently he was hearing the whole story.

Anthony Cosden, that was the stranger’s name, and his life had been much as Mr Satterthwaite had imagined it. He was a bad hand at telling a story but his listener supplied the gaps easily enough. A very ordinary life – an average income, a little soldiering, a good deal of sport whenever sport offered, plenty of friends, plenty of pleasant things to do, a sufficiency of women. The kind of life that practically inhibits thought of any description and substitutes sensation. To speak frankly, an animal’s life. ‘But there are worse things than that,’ thought Mr Satterthwaite from the depths of his experience. ‘Oh! many worse things than that …’ This world had seemed a very good place to Anthony Cosden. He had grumbled because everyone always grumbled but it had never been a serious grumble. And then – this.

He came to it at last – rather vaguely and incoherently. Hadn’t felt quite the thing – nothing much. Saw his doctor, and the doctor had persuaded him to go to a Harley Street man. And then – the incredible truth. They’d tried to hedge about it – spoke of great care – a quiet life, but they hadn’t been able to disguise that that was all eyewash – letting him down lightly. It boiled down to this – six months. That’s what they gave him. Six months.

He turned those bewildered brown eyes on Mr Satterthwaite. It was, of course, rather a shock to a fellow. One didn’t – one didn’t somehow, know what do do.

Mr Satterthwaite nodded gravely and understandingly.

It was a bit difficult to take in all at once, Anthony Cosden went on. How to put in the time. Rather a rotten business waiting about to get pipped. He didn’t feel really ill – not yet. Though that might come later, so the specialist had said – in fact, it was bound to. It seemed such nonsense to be going to die when one didn’t in the least want to. The best thing, he had thought, would be to carry on as usual. But somehow that hadn’t worked.

Here Mr Satterthwaite interrupted him. Wasn’t there, he hinted delicately, any woman?

But apparently there wasn’t. There were women, of course, but not that kind. His crowd was a very cheery crowd. They didn’t, so he implied, like corpses. He didn’t wish to make a kind of walking funeral of himself. It would have been embarrassing for everybody. So he had come abroad.

‘You came to see these islands? But why?’ Mr Satterthwaite was hunting for something, something intangible but delicate that eluded him and yet which he was sure was there. ‘You’ve been here before, perhaps?’

‘Yes.’ He admitted it almost unwillingly. ‘Years ago when I was a youngster.’

And suddenly, almost unconsciously so it seemed, he shot a quick glance backward over his shoulder in the direction of the villa.

‘I remembered this place,’ he said, nodding at the sea. ‘One step to eternity!’